The First
by glasscandlegrenades
Summary: As Harry and Ginny prepare for the birth of their first grandchild, they reminisce on the births of their own children. Originally written for an SIYE challenge, but SIYE seems down at the moment.


The cottage window had been shoved open in a vain attempt to catch a night breeze, yet the muslin curtains were still, and the stagnant air pressed down heavily upon Harry. He twisted once more, kicking the sheet into a nest at his feet, causing Ginny to stir beside him.

"_Go-a sleep_," she mumbled drowsily, reaching out from beneath the duvet to lay a reassuring hand on his arm.

"Why's it taking so long?" Harry asked her. He had never before noticed that the crack on their whitewashed ceiling was shaped rather like a niffler.

Ginny opened her eyes with a huff, but she turned and smiled softly at the concern etched across Harry's face.

He glanced down to her. "I'm serious; I'm starting to worry."

"The first always takes a long time," said Ginny.

"You're just saying that."

"I'm not. Remember James?"

Harry smiled in spite of himself. "Yeah, he did take forever, didn't he?" He chuckled. "I should've known then what he'd do to my nerves."

"You were a mess," Ginny said fondly, sitting up and pointing her wand at the lamp on nightstand, which emitted a dull light.

"_Me_?" asked Harry. "I seem to remember _someone_ needed a Calming Draught because she thought her unborn child was trying to kill her."

"Fifteen hours, Harry," Ginny said. "Fifteen hours of active labour, without sleep or food, and each time I pushed, that massive Potter head would start to pop out, only to slide right back in. 'Course I went mental near the end."

Harry hadn't thought about that morning in ages, but he was laughing now. Ginny had held up reasonably well until around the thirteenth hour, when James simply wouldn't emerge, despite her best efforts. She had drawn blood from his forearms as she had clutched him in those final moments, her exhausted moans only punctuated by her agonized cries of, "_Why_ is it doing this to me?"

As his heart had thudded with the suspense of it all, Harry had tried to reassure her that their baby wasn't intentionally trying to hurt her, but his words had fallen on deaf ears. Nonetheless, James had finally arrived, screaming and beautiful, and Harry had felt sick with love at the sight of him.

The midwife had handed the baby to Ginny, who'd fallen back on the bed, clutching him to her chest as tears leaked from the corners of her eyes into her ears. She had kissed James, her hands shaking as she stared, mesmerized, into his tiny face.

"See," Harry had said thickly, ignoring the moisture in his own eyes as he had wiped Ginny's sweaty hair from her forehead and reached out to touch his son's slippery skin. "He wasn't trying to kill you."

His wife's brown eyes had snapped away from their son to meet Harry's gaze. "He was," she had insisted in a dark whisper. "He failed."

Harry, in his state of shock and exhaustion, had laughed then, laughed until he could hardly breathe, and he was laughing now, all these years later with Ginny still beside him.

"God, that still might be the best thing I've ever heard," Harry said, switching to his best impression of Ginny's voice. "'_He failed_.'"

"Hang on, I don't sound like that," said Ginny.

"Like what?"

"Like a drunk farmer doing a pirate impression."

Harry raised an eyebrow at her.

"Maybe, sometimes, whatever," she said. "Come on, let's go downstairs. I'll never get back to sleep now."

They threw back the blankets and pulled on dressing gowns. They were quiet on the stairs, out of sheer habit, though it had been nearly four years since any of their children had lived in this house.

Harry sat at the kitchen island as Ginny opened the hutch beside the icebox.

"What d'you reckon?" she asked. "Four in the morning - firewhisky or tea?"

"Tea, obviously," said Harry. Ginny grinned, placing a tumbler in front of him and filling it generously with the Ogden's Old Firewhisky she'd summoned from the larder. She sat down across from him and took his hand in hers.

"I love you," she said softly.

Harry brushed his thumb across her knuckles. Even now, with twenty-five years of marriage and three children between them, Harry's stomach still clenched every time Ginny told him how she cared for him, especially in the quiet moments like these, where no convention nor event demanded the words be said. "I love you, Ginny," he said.

She smiled. "D'you really think the kids' personalities were decided by the way they came into this world?"

Harry grinned. "I hope not. Poor Al practically fell out of you."

Ginny blanched and took a long drink from her own glass. "Glad we can laugh about that now. George saw me before the midwives arrived and said I looked like I was trying to hide a mandrake in my pyjama bottoms."

It had been incredibly stressful at the time. Harry had been in the midst of one of the most difficult cases of his career, and Ginny had been staying with her parents so they could help with James.

They'd thrown a New Year's Eve party at the Burrow that year. Ginny, six weeks from her due date, had gone to the loo thinking she was about to relieve a particularly upset stomach. It was only then that she realized she was, in fact, in labour, and Al was born, thankfully healthy, half-an-hour after the stroke of midnight.

"Hey," Ginny said. "You alright?"

Harry broke out of his reverie, but didn't speak, choosing instead to give Ginny a pointed look.

"He'll be fine, sweetheart," Ginny said.

"What if…," Harry nearly trailed off, but Ginny's brow was furrowed in concern, and his anxieties seemed to just spill out. "What if Elizabeth changes her mind? I… I feel like Al rushed into this, that he was worried they wouldn't have another opportunity…. I mean, he's only twenty-three-"

"You were twenty-three when James was born," Ginny said lightly, but she wasn't smiling now. "If Elizabeth changes her mind, then she changes her mind. It will be hard, but Albus is an adult, Harry. He knows it's a possibility. They'll get through it."

"I wish he hadn't told us it was happening tonight," Harry grumbled, glancing at the clock over the mantlepiece.

"He's excited," Ginny said simply. "I'm excited, too, for the record. You know as well as I do that expecting the worst to guard yourself doesn't work… and Harry, I really don't think Elizabeth will decide to keep the baby."

Harry only shrugged. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so worked up. No matter how useless he had felt during the births of his own children, he'd at least been in on the action. He had known what was going on. This lack of information was unnerving. He took another sip of firewhisky, relishing the burn at the back of his throat.

"Do you think it'll be a boy or a girl?" Ginny asked with a smile, brushing her fingers against the back of his wrist.

"No," Harry said.

"No gender?" Ginny asked with a playful grin. "How modern. You think Al caught wind of Lily's lecture last week about deconstructing biological essentialism?"

"No, I'm not guessing," Harry said. "I'm always wrong."

"Exactly," Ginny said. "That's why I want you to guess, so I know what it'll end up actually being."

"Fine. A girl."

"Dammit, why didn't you say boy?" Ginny said. "I wanted a girl!"

"You're not supposed to say that," Harry chuckled. "You're meant to say you only want them to be happy and healthy."

"With your own kids, yeah, but with grandchildren it's a free-for-all, isn't it? I can say whatever I bloody well please. Anyways, don't lie, you were in a real state about wanting a daughter when we were having Lily. Trying to convince me to keep having kids until one of them was a girl… as if I don't have firsthand experience as to how that would turn out…"

"That was because of George!" Harry said. "Because he heard you say it was definitely our last baby, and then he told me that he read in Witch Weekly that after you've had two boys, your chance of having a girl goes down to eleven percent or something like that! That's why I was sure she was a boy!"

"Alright, well, George Weasley and Witch Weekly are both pretty shit sources for statistical information, so I really don't have any sympathy for you if you're going to be so gullib-"

Ginny was cut-off by the sound of the fireplace springing to life, and she and Harry both turned sharply to see their second son's face illuminated in the flames.

"Al!" said Ginny, dropping to her knees in front of the hearth.

"It's a girl," Albus said, and though his voice was raspy, full of emotion, he was smiling more broadly than Harry had ever seen him, and Harry felt elated, like he was floating, even as he dropped down beside his wife.

"Oh, sweetheart," Ginny said, and she was laughing now, covering her mouth with her hand. "How is she?"

Even through the flickering green light, Albus seemed exhausted, but his grin was dopey, infectious. He laughed again.

"She's fantastic," he said, and then glanced behind him, beaming. "Yeah, I'm coming." He turned back to face his parents. "The midwives only just finished checking her over; we've brought her back to ours from Elizabeth's. Will you come?"

"Of course, of course, we'll be right over," Ginny said, clapping her hands together in a way that Harry could only describe as Molly-ish. Albus laughed and then was gone, and Harry stood, pulling Ginny with him.

Her eyes were shining. "A little girl! You were right!"

Harry's mouth felt like it had been permanently stretched. "There's a first time for everything, I suppose." He tightened his grip on Ginny's hand, pulling her towards him, and their lips met, their grins dancing together.

"Come on," she said. "I want to see her!"

They bustled to the door, where Harry suddenly paused. "You don't think _he'll_ be there, do you?"

"Oh, Jesus, this again?" Ginny sighed. "Who gives a rat's arse, Grandad?"

Harry laughed, pulling on a boot. He'd thought becoming a grandparent would make him feel unbelievably old, but he felt like running a marathon; his heart was racing as they darted back to the kitchen and threw a pinch of Floo Powder into the fireplace.

"Wood's End!" Harry cried as they stepped in together, and they were whisked away, Harry not even remembering to feel uncomfortable as the flames enveloped him.

They were deposited roughly into Albus's sitting room. Immediately hands were on the front of his robes, pulling him upwards and bringing him into a tight embrace, and Harry gripped the man back, and when he pulled away he could see his son-in-law's eyes, the steely grey rimmed with red.

"Wait 'til you hold her," Scorpius said in a rush. "She's so sweet, she's hardly made a peep since she was born; the midwife handed her to Al and she just looked around, like she was taking it all in, you know?"

Harry laughed again, clapping Scorpius on the back as he turned to see Ginny, her arms wrapped around their son, who had leaned down to whisper something in her ear. Ginny leaned back to laugh, but Harry could see tears welling once more as she patted Albus affectionately on the cheek and looked towards the fireplace, where a thin man sat, holding a small bundle of blankets.

Ginny stepped forward, and Draco looked up to her, wearing the same reserved, slightly embarrassed expression that he always bore when in the presence of Harry and Ginny. But Ginny was all warmth, the fire illuminating her hair as she pushed it behind her ear before reaching down and laying a hand on Malfoy's shoulder and peering down into the bundle.

"Oh, Albus," she said softly. "Oh, boys, she's perfect."

Malfoy raised the bundle slightly, and Ginny accepted the baby from him, standing in front of the fire and swaying slightly as a tiny hand thrust out from the swaddle towards her.

"Oh!" said Ginny in surprise. "Was that a wave, then? Well, hello to you, too. We'll have to think of what you can call me. You're lucky, you are, to be the first grandchild, the oldest always gets to name the grandparents."

She seemed to consider the baby for a moment, before murmuring, "It's a big responsibility, so don't screw it up and call me something boring, alright?"

Scorpius laughed. He and Albus had moved to the fireplace as well, and Harry watched as his son reached down to his husband's hand, brushing the back of his palm against Scorpius's before taking it in his own.

Harry looked up at his son again, really taking in his appearance for the first time that evening. Albus was still smiling at Ginny as she crooned over the baby, but there was something different about him, something beyond the clear signs of exhaustion and emotional upheaval of the night, something underneath the worn out t-shirt and red-rimmed eyes.

Scorpius murmured something quiet to Albus, who gave a quiet chuckle, still smiling at the scene before him, and Harry felt oddly like he was looking in a mirror, not only because Albus was the spit of him, because he recognized that his son, his son who had never been comfortable in his skin, who had always felt slightly out of place in his own legendary clan, who had always lived on the defensive, was finally at ease, here with his own small family.

Harry felt a sting behind his own eyes as he was overwhelmed with the sudden surge of affection for his youngest son, the unbridled love that he felt when he considered any of his children, who were all brilliant, and beautiful, and good, and he knew that Albus was learning the same intense love that Harry himself had found some twenty-five years ago when a midwife had placed James into his own arms.

"What will you call her?" Ginny asked softly, and Albus crossed his arms over his chest instinctively, and Harry and Ginny both recognized the sign of any new parent itching to have their child back in their arms, and Ginny leaned forward to hand her son his daughter, and the tears welling in Harry's eyes were threatening to fall for real now as he watched Albus gaze, besotted, at the baby.

Scorpius cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion, and Harry thought briefly that they must've been the sappiest bunch in all of Britain.

"We're going to call her Astoria, for Mum," he said. "Astoria Ginevra, actually, for both the mums."

Draco nodded minutely, his nostrils flaring, and Ginny smiled at the baby once more, sleeping soundly in her father's arms.

"Astoria," she said. "A beautiful name for a beautiful girl, I think. Ginevra, though? We'll have to think up a way to get back at them for that one."

Scorpius laughed, but Harry could see in the tender way that Ginny glanced back up at Albus that she was flattered. Draco cleared his throat.

"How long before Elizabeth can't…. How long before it's all official?" he asked. Ginny made a face, and stepped closer to Harry on instinct, taking his hand in hers. He brushed his thumb across her fingers, feeling the cool metal of wedding ring.

"Twenty-four hours," Albus said quietly. "Then we can take her to the Ministry to register the birth as her parents."

"Elizabeth seemed happy for us," Scorpius said in a rush. "It was emotional, believe me, but she didn't seem to regret it or…."

He trailed off, looking hopefully to Albus, but Al was gazing down to the baby, smiling softly.

Harry glanced back to Ginny, who squeezed his hand, but her expression was reserved.

"You've been quiet, Dad."

Harry looked from Ginny back to Albus, who was smiling at him, but there was something harder under his son's expression, and Harry had the distinct feeling of having just been found out.

"Don't you want to hold her?" Albus asked, offering his father the bundle.

Harry felt a moment of fear, but he knew they were all in it now, there was no going back, and so he allowed Albus to place the baby in his arms, and he drew her into his chest, reaching out to run a finger down her tiny cheek before he really realized what he was doing.

Between Teddy, his own three children, and more nieces and nephews than he could remember at the moment, Harry was no stranger to handling very small babies, and he felt a surge of joy at the small, warm weight of Astoria.

He realized, as he looked over her little, wrinkled face, that his strategy for appreciating a newborn was normally to find the familiarities of his friends and relatives in their own countenances, but Harry had never met Elizabeth, the third-year Healing student, the cousin of a friend of Lily's, who had trusted Albus and Scorpius to raise the child that she hadn't felt equipped to care for. He didn't know what this woman looked like, and this made Astoria something of a stranger, completely new and small and, as Harry noted with a gulp, perfect.

She was perfect. Her cheeks were tiny and yet huge, her lips stretching into a small, gummy yawn as she shifted comfortably in her grandfather's arms. Harry couldn't fathom how birth, how babies, could be so commonplace and yet so miraculous, but he found himself suddenly taken with her potential, and he realized with a pang that he already adored her.

Her mouth stretched abruptly wider, and her eyes squinched even tighter together as she let out a giant sneeze, and the adults all laughed, enraptured, and Harry felt that stinging in his eyes again, felt a tear well in the corner, as he contemplated just how wonderfully, blissfully _alive_ his first grandchild was, he let the tear fall.

"Dad?" Albus asked softly, and Harry broke his gaze away from Astoria. His son looked hesitant, uncomfortable, even, but Ginny was smiling knowingly at the pair of them, and Harry could only grin broadly at Al as another tear slipped down his cheek.

"I'm so - I'm so proud of you, son," he said, trying not to feel too embarrassed that Malfoy was seeing his eyes water like this, his hands too busy cradling the baby to wipe away the evidence of his emotion. But at Harry's words, Draco inclined his head, seemingly in agreement, towards his own son.

Ginny leaned over and kissed Harry's cheek, and he looked happily back down at the baby, still sleeping soundly, and decided then that even if he couldn't know the future, even if he couldn't control if Elizabeth changed her mind, he knew at least two things; that his and Ginny's first grandchild was perfect, and that no matter what happened, their son would be fine. They would make sure of it. All was well.

* * *

a/n: full disclosure: im american, and in america a large number of adoptions are done privately, with birth parents and adoptive parents arranging between themselves using an agency, with a window of time that the birth mother can typically change her mind before relinquishing parental rights. im not sure how it's typically done in the uk, where i assume state agencies take on more of a role, but i figure that because wizarding britain has such a small population it is acceptable for adoptions to be arranged privately, as they are in this story.


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